


Chiaroscuro

by stormae



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff, Photographer!Au, band!au, cinematographer!au, musician!AU, the secondary plot to this story is that jungwoo is an angel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-04
Updated: 2018-11-04
Packaged: 2019-08-17 07:45:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16512164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stormae/pseuds/stormae
Summary: Chiaroscuro – the interaction of light and shade in the composition of an artwork, and art has a tendency to imitate life.





	Chiaroscuro

**Author's Note:**

> The songs featured in the story are If I Get High and Lover, Please Stay by Nothing But Thieves, if you're interested in listening to get a better sense of what I imagined when writing.

Music is a lover only suited to those who enjoy the process of being scorned, over and over again, for a multitude of reasons or sometimes no reason at all. You had not experienced this first hand, you did not enjoy the soul crushing cycle of learning an instrument, learning songs, forming a band, writing your own music only for the handful of people who think it’s ok not to be good enough. It continues to amaze you that so many musicians are kicked in the teeth by the harsh realities of art in the real world, only to pick their drumsticks up and salvage their guitars and start over again. Musicians are often painted as tortured and defeated by a world that was not designed for their sensitive souls, but you were of the opinion that musicians were some of the most optimistic people you had ever met.

Take Jungwoo, for example. He could play piano and guitar passably, but his real gift was his voice. You’d grown up spending afternoons and weekends listening to him sing and try to play guitar at the same time. His voice was captivating, it always has been, and it normally managed to distract the listener from any questionable chords warbling from the hollow of the acoustic guitar his parents had reluctantly bought for him his sixth birthday. He did not fit the destitute musical stereotype at all. He was resilient and smiley and always the centrepiece to any band he managed to corral together long enough to play one event at a school fundraiser before the other members decided it was too embarrassing or just all too hard. Each time he would nod understandingly and send them on their way with a smile. He put groups together as quickly as they fell apart. The only constant was him and his voice, and you and your camera.

You had gone through primary and high school together, and now attended the same university. You were in the practical arts faculty studying photography and cinematography. Jungwoo was coerced into a mechanical engineering degree by his concerned, well-meaning parents. To be fair to them, Jungwoo didn’t have a good track record to back up his big dream of making it as the lead singer of a band. He was smart and a hard worker, anyway, so it wasn’t like he was failing through his engineering degree. He got good grades, he had friends, he even enjoyed a couple of the more practical classes. But he never, not once, forwent telling people that he was just studying until he got his big break. It would be annoying if he were less earnest.

So it came as little surprise to you when he informed you of his new band. It was a rag tag team of his university friends who he hadbrowbeaten into agreeing with enthusiasm alone. He was hard to say no to.

You were sat in one of the hole in the wall coffee shops on the main street that ran alongside your campus, beaten up boots on the edge of the seat with your knees under your chin. Your coffee cup sat vacant on the table in front of you, drained of its contents long ago. Jungwoo was sat across from you, folded over a notebook you recognised from the many times you’d had this same conversation over the years. The page that the battered book was open to in that moment was a list of band names.

“Drumhead?”

“No,” you shook your head, fighting down the laughter that you knew he would find disheartening.

“Rockknot?”

“C’mon dude, are you even trying here?”

“Spooky Bank?”

“Why is the bank spooky? Do you have ghosts in your bank?”

“Opium Down?”

“As opposed to what?” You asked, furrowing your brow, “Opium Up? When have you taken an opioid in your life? Why wasn’t I there?”

“Grim Idiotic?”

Your frown deepened, “Can you tell me something, Jungwoo?”

“Sure?”

“Did you sit down with a dictionary and pick any two words you found that you thought sounded cool together?”

He sniffed and leant back in his seat, draining the last of his tepid coffee. “Band names don’t have to make sense. Have you heard of King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard? Psychedelic Porn Crumpets? Petit Biscuit?”

“You know what? I haven’t. Probably because they chose to be called that.”

“But you’ll remember them _now_.”

“Yeah, now that I’m scarred by all of those mental images.”

He blew out a breath, his light brown fringe floating around his eyes, “I just want to be memorable.”

“As a magical, royal lizard?”

“Maybe.”

“It still has to have an essence of who you are in it, though, Jungwoo. Otherwise you’re memorable, but it’s just as a joke. Infamous.”

He was quiet for a moment, before conceding, “I’ll keep thinking.”

“Good idea,” you nodded, glad you’d performed your job of steering him clear of total disaster. “Who’s in the band with you this time, anyway?”

“Kun’s on keys, Johnny from my first year coding class is gonna play drums, Yuta’s on bass and you know Yukhei from mechanical design? Who I brought to the pub crawl last week? Tall?”

You nodded. It would be hard to fail to remember Yukhei. He had the sort of presence that smacked you in the face and left you reeling until he was far enough away to regain your senses.

“He’s on guitar.”

You wanted to say it sounded promising, like he could make it this time, but in all honestly there was nothing that seemed different from the countless previous attempts at the same goal that had gone down in flames with varying degrees of speed and flair.

You were still always going to support him, though. So it was the usual routine when you went over to his house on a Sunday afternoon to edit photos whilst he governed the first band practice. You spent most of your free time at Jungwoo’s anyway, as it was a share house. A rickety townhouse, with paint peeling from the facade, a dead garden that had been a nice idea but never come to fruition, couches that were who knows how old and had come from god knows where. But it was a space devoid of responsible adults complaining about the noise or the dishes piling up in the sink. It was noisy, which brought with it a certain sort of peace amidst calamity.

None of the five housemates drove a car, with petrol prices further incentivising the convenience of nearby trains, so the garage was free to clutter with instruments. The drummer, Johnny, turned up early with his spare drum set in the tray of his truck. Jungwoo helped him unload the various parts and set it up on the corner. As he laboured over putting together the instrument, his long fringe fell across his face and his brow furrowed. Your fingers itched to pick up your camera and snap a photo, but you’d only just met the guy. Some people weren’t comfortable with cameras in their faces, anyway.

Kun and Yuta had carpooled, turning up together with their instruments. Kun carried a portable plastic keyboard under his arm which he assured Jungwoo would do the job, despite looking like a half-determined toddler could crack it in half. Yuta bringing his own bass was a non-issue.

“Yukhei’s late,” Johnny noted, slumped on one of the old, peculiar smelling couches that were set up in the corner of the room. You liked to assume the smell was just lots and lots of must.

“We should have told him to get here an hour early,” Yuta was leant against the arm of the other couch, plucking at the strings on his bass, listening to the tone and twisting the knobs at the end of the neck accordingly until he was satisfied with the tune. Johnny heaved himself from the couch and settled down behind the drum set, picking up his wooden sticks and twirling them between his fingers like a conductor commanding an imaginary army.

The sound of a motorbike exhaust with no semblance of a muffler drowned out any attempts at band practice as the vehicle tore around the corner and barrelled down the street, coming to a stop at an awkward angle between the driveway and the footpath. The rider kicked out the stand and swung a long leg over the bike, ripping the helmet from his head and slinging it over a handlebar as he strode into the garage with a guitar case strapped to his back. His dark brown hair was plastered to his forehead in places where the heat under the helmet had become too much, but any other signs of hurry were absent. He smiled at his friends, removing the guitar case and plopping it down on the couch next to where you sat, flicking open the latches and removing his instrument from its velveteen coffin. He smiled at you in momentary greeting, before looping the strap over his head and shoving a hot pink pick between pursed lips. He turned back to his band and began rapidly, expertly tuning his guitar. Everyone was incapable of doing anything but watching in mixed states of dumbfounded awe. He was a whirlwind making landfall when it suited him, his momentum flattening any obstacle in his path, or any suggestion that his timing was anything other than inopportune.

Once he was done, he plucked the pick from his lips and looked around at everyone else expectantly, “So? What should we try first? Something easy? Maybe Seven Nation Army? Or a Coldplay song. People like those sorts of songs, easy to sing along to or easy to drown out. Or maybe a Beatles’ song? Love Me Do? I think I know the chords to that one.”

And so the whirlwind resumed, picking up and carrying off everyone in its periphery. Despite your best efforts to focus on the raw photos you were meant to be editing on your computer, the colour balance couldn’t hold your attention away from the scene before you. Now, you were always honest with yourself about Jungwoo’s music, if not always with him. And these guys were not great. Quite bad, actually. Discordant, unsure, out of time, untrusting, flat, too fast or slow. There was none of the seamless magic a good live performance conveyed, as if the music were a natural extension of the performers, themselves. Your thoughts were interrupted by Yukhei hitting the wrong chord.

“Fuck. Sorry.”

And they picked back up with a tentative lead in from Jungwoo, and battled forward. But they were still enchanting to watch. Sure they were all attractive, which certainly helped. But they also had an easy sort of vibrance about them that was hard for you to really explain. It may have been the excited glances they exchanged when they went a few minutes sounding halfway decent, or the evident passion they had for their crafts, or it may have been as simple as being in close proximity to creative people doing what they loved, even if it was pretty bad. It was still enchanting, endearing. Easy to watch, if not easy to listen to. They had something to them that you hadn’t noticed in any of the other bands Jungwoo had dragged together.

But the next few practices after that were equally rough, and the bright gleam of novelty started to fade from the band. You started to wonder if it didn’t matter that they seemed to have a quality the other bands hadn’t. It just didn’t seem like they were going to get it together.

You thought about mentioning it to Jungwoo, because sometimes it was hard to tell if you were wasting your time when it was something you loved. And you’d seen him start up bands countless times before. You knew this was taking too long to click into place. Some moments were good, but they were far outweighed by the bits that were bad. Like a record on a shitty player, the needle unable to stay on track for more than a few seconds before it jumped, disrupting any semblance of order.

But you decided you couldn’t do it. You’d done it before, told him when things weren’t going well. Many would call that cruel, that a creative passion should be fostered with the delicate care of one raising a motherless chick. But he was always honest with you about your photography and your cinematography, always told you when something looked weird, was too abstract, was unflattering, didn’t make sense, was boring. You had always thought it your duty to return the favour.

This time around, though, he just seemed to be having too much fun. They all did. You found yourself stuck watching them fumble their way enthusiastically through new songs. They hadn’t come across a single one they all knew yet. But that was ok, because they obviously didn’t mind. You didn’t mind, either. Not really, not in the end. Not when they spent so much of the practice goofing around and smiling.

And then one Saturday afternoon the balance shifted. They were all gathered for practice, or almost all. Jungwoo was noticeably absent—an odd occurrence when he was the leader, the punctual one, the one who’s house they practiced at—so they were lounging around in wait. You were sandwiched between Yukhei and Johnny, who were chattering away to each other and sometimes to you. They were peering at your latest photography assignment, watching you colour grade as if it were a magic spell you were casting over your photos, and not the work of the several-hundred-dollar editing software.

“What’s the word again?” Yukhei asked, flicking his fringe from his eyes with a chuck of his head so he could get a better look at the images on your screen. It was a picture of Jungwoo’s narrow townhouse kitchen, which was nothing special apart from the cute pale green tiles and a dying orchid on the windowsill. For an hour in the afternoon, though, the sun flooded through the window perfectly, bathing the room in light.

“Chiaroscuro.”

“The difference between light and dark,” Johnny bobbed his head, repeating the definition you had told him moments before.

“Traditionally applied to physical art mediu—”

It was at that moment Jungwoo clattered down the loose wooden steps and into the garage, just sliding his phone into his pocket.

“Well,” he was glowing with ecstasy, “I’ve done it. We’ve booked a gig.”

The boys muttered excitedly to each other, mainly with enthusiastic expletives. They didn’t seem overjoyed, though. Not as much as you would have deemed appropriate, especially from these boys, who you’d come to know as overflowing with excitement at any given moment.

So when they all stood up and picked up their instruments and got into positions, you remained focused on your computer screen. This assignment was due by midnight, and your penchant for perfection tended to push those deadlines. You ended up tearing your gaze from the sliding bars and editing options, though, when you felt the atmosphere change. They were different, a stark contrast from their last practice three days ago. Or even to forty five minutes ago. Their passion and enjoyment was not dulled as far as you could see, but it was now forced to mix with a sort of seriousness you had yet to see them display. You realised that may have very well been just what they were lacking. With the confirmation they were going to play in front of an audience, the reality seemed to sink in for them, and that was all they needed to start really listening to each other as they played. They stopped just playing their instruments as individuals, and started putting effort into playing the music _with_ each other. The record needle found the groove, and fell into it with a grateful _click_ , no longer forced to skip hither and thither. They found the harmony you had been beginning to fear they would never capture.

It started with a beginning of semester faculty party, where they got unsuitably buzzed and thrashed out Pink, or Avril Lavigne, or All Star to the crowd of exhausted, intoxicated university students making the most of the kegs of free alcohol. Those were the songs for the moment, the songs to sing along to.

And then they were asked to play at a society party, then at some of the bars on campus. Just mid-week stuff, something to potentially draw in a crowd, who would then buy beer and spend money on the premises. But the momentum was building, and the band was good. Great, even. Enthralling. Enjoyable to watch, to listen to. So they started to be booked on Thursdays and Sundays, then Friday and Saturday nights. They were being counted on to draw a crowd. They introduced original music into the sets, which was rudimentary but catchy and enjoyable, with lots of drum and guitar and bass. Then it was local venues in the area surrounding the university, notorious for fostering the creative arts young people turned to when academics were sucking their souls from their caffeinated, malnourished bodies.

But the boys were still the same. It was a warm Sunday afternoon, and they’d just finished running through the songs they’d felt hadn’t been clean enough during their set the night before. It only took an hour, and now they had dispersed, Jungwoo to submit an assignment that would ‘only take a few minutes,’ Johnny to get a case of beer, and the others just to the couches. You were, as always, overworking your laptop, which was slipping further and further towards the status of ancient relic, rather than epitome of the modern age. The fan was blowing so hard and loud you wouldn’t be surprised if the computer just took off and flew away.

Kun and Yuta were on one couch, the former reading a Penguin paperback with an orange cover and yellowed pages, and the latter taking a nap. Yukhei was next to you, reclining his head on the pillows behind him and lazily watching you work. You were editing a short film for one of your practical cinematography class. It was of one of your friends, Kai, dancing in an empty room, moving gracefully through the light afforded by the windows to the shade and back again.

“Chiaroscuro,” he commented, the tone of his deep voice momentarily distracting you from what he’d actually said. You still stuck with your belief that getting too close to Yukhei was bad for any logical mental faculties.

You blinked, and then noticed that, “Yeah, it is. I didn’t do it on purpose, though. I think that’s just a feature I like to work with.”

“It feels magical,” he said, reaching over your arm to tap the spacebar, prompting the thirty seconds you had up to that point to playback. You’d borrowed a superzoom lens from another friend, and had slowed the footage down in Premiere.

“It’d be better if I had a proper slow motion camera. But my god, those things cost a soul.”

You lapsed back into an industrious silence and Yukhei watched you continue to tweak and cut the film together. The uncharacteristic quiet endured for so long his voice startled you when he spoke again.

“Wouldn’t it be cool if we had a short film from one of our gigs?”

Kun glanced up from his novel.

“Or even photos that were, you know,” he waved his hand in the air to indicate that one should know, “good?”

“Mm,” Yuta contributed, which baffled you. Was he pretending to sleep? “I’ve been getting more followers recently, but don’t have anything to post.”

“That’s what I was thinking,” Yukhei bobbed his head sagely.

You knew what they were probing at, but were reluctant to volunteer your services. You weren’t a professional, by any stretch of the term, and something like that would be time-consuming. You also would never charge them, so it would exhaust you and fail to aid your financial situation. It was irresponsible to agree.

“So?” Yukhei bumped his shoulder against yours, “What do you say?”

“Sure.” The word passed your lips with reflexive ease, and your tone betrayed you true excitement at the prospect. All practice was good practice, right? It would broaden your portfolio. You’d always known you’d be broke for the first third of your life, anyway. You were pursuing a degree in visual arts, after all. The only acclaim you could really hope for was posthumous. When people could have your art without having to pay you for it. When it became a finite resource.

So the following weekend you brought your DSLR to band practice and directed the boys to stand in various positions around the house, snapping pictures of them and trying to hide the discomfort that was evident in their bodies. They were smiling and laughing and joking, as per usual, but you could tell they were uneasy about the prospect of curating a social media platform for anyone other than their friends to see. Strangers? Interested in them?

So when they started to practice you forsook your regular spot in the corner under your laptop, and instead tiptoed around the band, trying to take pictures of whoever was least aware of your presence at any moment. Those photos were much better, as candids almost always were.

Once you were satisfied, you plugged your camera into your overflowing computer (all your money went into backup hard drives, too) and uploaded the photos, culling for the best ones and colour grading them as subtly as you could. The hours passed and practice ended, although you didn’t notice until Jungwoo and Kun were looming over you, peering at your screen.

“That’s what you were doing,” Kun deduced what to him had been a mystery. You turned a sardonic eye to him.

“I wasn’t just doing laps of the room with my camera, dude.”

“They’re not bad,” Jungwoo muttered, his stare fixed to the screen. You narrowed your eyes at him, which prompted a rushed explanation, “Not that I ever doubted your ability, Y/N. I doubted us.”

They each posted a photo to their socials, watching with wide eyes as their accounts were flooded with praise. It was no legion of new fans, but it was more than the disingenuous quips that were normally left by friends. It was hard for their minds to process the fact that things were truly changing for them. It was not the same as it had been two weeks ago, and certainly not two months ago. Their world was changing around them, because of them, regardless of whether they wanted it to or not.

But they did want it. This was their dream, coming true before their very disbelieving eyes. If you had not known Jungwoo better, you would have almost thought those were tears pooling along his waterline, giving his eyes the gleam of someone who had not given up and was finally starting to see the results when even they had begun to think it was no longer worth it. And you, by way of some strange blessing, were apparently along for the ride.

* * *

 

You had never anticipated being a part of a band. Mostly because you lacked any sort of musical talent, and had no desire to be in one in the first place. But despite a blatant absence of skill and will, you found yourself contributing. Not musically, obviously, but more as a managerial figure. Wherever they were, you were somewhere close by, most likely with a camera and a rough idea of the schedule they should be following and almost always strayed from.

You also became closer with each member, developing a friendship with every one of them in your own right. Jungwoo would always be your best friend, but Yuta and you shared a love for a particular ice cream parlour in an inconvenient corner of the city, and you and Kun enjoyed accompanying one another to the local library to work in companionable silence, a unique combination of camaraderie and productivity that you had with no one else. You didn’t know Johnny as well with the others, for he was the only one who still hadn’t given up his job as a bartender at a local cocktail bar, and was juggling a relationship, university and the band on top of all of that.

The band had decided to call themselves Citizen, as, despite Jungwoo’s best attempts, Spooky Bank didn’t resonate with the other members the way Jungwoo had hoped.

Yukhei had come up with the name, actually, when you had been hanging out with him in the city centre one day. Because out of all the members, you had gravitated towards Yukhei, a friendship blossoming alarmingly fast. Jungwoo always seemed to have the world upon his shoulders, so as much as you made sure to spend time with him, you liked to make sure he had time to be alone with himself. Yukhei, however, was always looking to fill the spare moments, and you were apparently an all too willing accomplice. You also unabashedly thought the fact he rode a motorbike was very cool, and harassed him constantly to take you for a ride. And so one day when the weather shone fortuitously down upon you, he picked you up from your house mid morning, having planned a visit to a spot in the next town over a friend had recommended him. His bike was still needlessly loud, and you could hear it coming from several streets over, so you were ready in your driveway when he pulled up. Despite the pleasant weather you were in jeans, as instructed seriously by your driver. Yukhei yanked his helmet off and beamed at you, unzipping his leather jacket to allow a breeze to hit his torso as he clambered off and embraced you in an exuberant hug, picking you up from the ground and twisting you from side to side. You had to squirm to get him to put you back on your feet, where he maintained the embrace for another extended moment before finally freeing you.He then removed from the back of the bright white bike a kevlar jacket and extra helmet, as well as a pair of gloves. You raised your brows dubiously as he ordered you to extend your arms out, but complied, allowing him to slip you into the oversized garment, zipping it up. It dwarfed you, the sleeves extended far past your fingertips and the stiff material remained motionless even when you moved your body within it. Next were the gloves, which were stiff and also far too big, designed to fit his hands rather than yours, and then finally the helmet. He flicked open the visor (you couldn’t do it yourself in your comically large gloves) and gently tilted your head back as he did up the chinstrap, the pads of his fingers skimming the soft skin of your neck and jaw. You were glad there wasn’t a single inch of skin showing, because you were covered in ridiculous goosebumps.

“Now,” he said, zipping up his jacket again. It was old and the pleather was peeling off at the shoulders and elbows, but he wore it with an intrinsic comfort that prevented you from noticing the detail as anything other than to be expected from someone so comfortable with who they were, “when we go around corners you’re gonna want to lean away from them, but if you do that it will unbalance the bike and we will die,” he said, mock gravity on his face, “so you have to lean into them.”

He started up the bike and climbed on and indicted to the pillion for you to do the same. You swung your leg over, nervous excitement thrumming through your veins, fleetingly worried about toppling the bike. Once you were perched behind him, he looked over his shoulder to pull down your visor. “Hold onto my shoulders or my waist, wherever is comfortable,” he said, before turning forwards and flipping down his own visor. You panicked briefly, because his shoulders were a broad expanse spread out in front of you, but holding his waist seemed incredibly intimate. He started the bike, the roar of the engine doing nothing to help clear the turmoil in your mind. You ended up perching your hands delicately on his back, barely touching him. But you should never have doubted the decisiveness of a boy with a one track mind such as Yukhei, who noticed the featherlight touch and reached around to secure your hands around his torso, bringing your chest flush with his back.

“I like to go fast,” he shouted over the engine, “so I can’t have you perched back there in your own world.” And with that he was off, the flash of embarrassment you’d felt quickly replaced with exhilaration as he tore through the streets of your inner-city suburb, cutting across the city and heading north along one of the more scenic highways, that were only two lanes wide and wound through fields and forests. Every now and then he’d raise his voice and mention something to you, but you found yourself revelling in the atmosphere of streaking along the road with the wind battering your protected body, the vehicle streamlined to cut across the ground, its driver delighting in the way the bike dipped and accelerated.

When you reached your destination, you were surprised. When he had said ‘the next town over,’ you hadn’t realised it was going be a tiny town halfway between your city and the next business district, the kind of place where nothing happened quickly but no one minded because no one was in a rush, anyway. You both climbed off his bike and he removed all of the bodily protection from you, attaching it all to a secure hook under the pillion before leading you into a little cafe, indicating that this was the place he’d been told about.

The furniture inside was old and worn, in a way that reminded you of your grandma’s house. You wove through the tables and chairs to the courtyard out the back. The ground was covered in those loose white pebbles that crunched under each step, and the furniture was that wrought metal that was painted white that needed frequent cleaning to stop from looked aged beyond its years. You sank down at one of the tables, and a middle-aged lady wearing an apron was upon you in an instant, handing you menus with a smile. You noticed the common theme of honey throughout the choices, and she explained that the owner had his own bee hives and collected the honey himself.

After ordering, you took a moment to absorb the scene. The courtyard was covered by a latticed roof, allowing the sun to stream down in a hexagonal pattern. The air temperature was comfortable, the environment was peaceful and quiet. Yukhei leant back in his seat and closed his eyes for a moment, marvelling at the tranquility that was seldom available in a big city like that in which you lived. He was wearing a royal blue t-shirt that stood out against the palette of greens and neutrals that was the cafe, but when he spoke his deep voice was quieter than usual. Instead of projecting it far and wide, as per his normal volume, it seemed he felt the need only to talk to you.

“I didn’t realise we were coming to a mom-and-pop cafe,” you told him as your chamomile and vanilla tea arrived, sweetened of course with honey.

“It’s nice though, right?” He gestured around, “It feels clean. Separate.”

Separate was an interesting choice of word, but you knew what he meant. “How do you feel about everything picking up at the moment? You’re playing some pretty big gigs. People even want to open for you guys, now.”

He wrapped his long fingers around the delicate porcelain cup, not making a move to drink it. He smiled passively, “It’s pretty cool, huh?”

“That may be the first time I’ve ever heard to understate something,” you marvelled, slightly worried. “Is it not what you thought it would be?”

“No!” He reassured you, the feeling in the quiet protest amazingly different to the way he usually spoke only in capitalised exclamatory statements, “It’s exactly how I imagined it. Better, even. I just can’t believe it’s happening to me. That everything is going so well, that it’s even going, at all.”

You smiled tenderly at him, “I’m glad you’re taking the time to let this sink in. I don’t think it’s going to slow down anytime soon.”

“No,” he released the word with a deep breath, “I don’t think so either.” Then he beamed at you, and your next words withered on your tongue, reduced to remnants of vanilla and honey, “I’m glad you’re doing it with us, Y/N.”

You hoped that your rising body temperature didn’t result in an obvious blush, and were thankful that the only person that could hear your heart was you, “I’m just hanging around with a camera.”

“Nah, it’s not that simple,” he snubbed your own dismissal, “you’re way more important than that. Everyone knows it.”

“You can’t get sick of me and stop letting me come to things, then,” you warned, desperately trying to figure out how to direct the conversation in any direction other than about you, “you’re stuck with me now.”

“That’s not going to be a problem,” he finally lifted his coffee to his lips, dark eyes watching you over the rim. You were convinced that you would prove true the superstition of spontaneous human combustion then and there if you didn’t find a way to get out from under his pinning gaze.

You were successful, self-immolation just barely avoided for the rest of the conversation. As the afternoon stretched on Yukhei wrapped you back up in all the kevlar he had and you clambered back onto the bike. This time you wrapped securely onto his shoulders, not trusting the kevlar to prevent him from feeling your rapid heartbeat if you returned your arms to their position around his waist. He didn’t protest. He had felt the dynamic shift between you, palpable as it was. He could be oblivious, but the only way he could have missed it would have been through careful deliberation. He was the catalyst, after all. And now you vibrated with nervous energy, unable to prevent your mind from racing as you rode home. He dropped you off at your house just as the sky started to dim, the parting hug far briefer than the embrace earlier that morning. He still smiled at you in a way that softened the jagged edges of your nerves, but once he drove off you were left alone to your thoughts once more, absence making the heart more frantic when it should have been the answer to your problems.

Your anxieties over the shift were irrational, of this you were aware. They were also nothing new. Whenever you began to notice feelings for someone, the part of your brain that planted the seeds of doubt started to work at its hardest, convincing you of every reason why friendship was always the better alternative. But their lack of novelty didn’t prevent them from looming over you for the next forty eight hours, ramping up to a level you didn’t know was attainable when you turned up to Jungwoo’s for their normal Friday afternoon practice and seeing Yukhei’s bike parked in the driveway.

You greeted everyone normally—you knew it was normal because you _ensured_ it was—and when Yuta finally rolled in they got the practice underway. You didn’t have an assignment to work on, so you picked up your camera and tried to snap a few pictures, but your usual enthusiasm was noticeably absent, at least to yourself. You were hyper-aware of how you looked at everyone and how everyone looked at you, regardless of how unsubstantiated your hypothesis was that everyone in the room could notice your change and pinpoint the source. You hated crushes, you hated how vulnerable they made you, not only to the object of affection but to everyone else as well. You didn’t take many photos, and the ones that you did take were sub-par at best, awful more frequently. When they took a break in the middle of practicing their set, Jungwoo and Johnny moved towards you with the intent of checking out the previews on your camera, but you hurriedly switched it off and excused yourself from the garage, slipping into the townhouse and searching out Jungwoo’s girlfriend to spend some time with in a desperate attempt to distract yourself. You had told yourself that you would go back down there once they finished up to say goodbye, but when the sounds of harmonious instruments stopped you were compelled by the doubting part of you to slip out the front door and head home, forsaking courtesy for your friends to appease the anxious monster scraping its claws against your ribs.

But you should have known escape would not be so simple. It was almost witching hour when your phone rang on your bedside table. You had been trying to sleep, but the ever-allusive unconscious reprieve was not coming to you tonight, at least not for a while. You rolled over and plucked it from the charger, staring at the name on the screen. Jungwoo. You really should have known.

You slid your thumb across the screen and lifted the phone to your ear, “Hello?”

“It’s me.”

“I know,” you couldn’t prevent the smile. Like an old man, he always seemed to forget all phones have caller ID, “what’re you up to?”

“Just going to bed and thought I’d give you a ring,” he said, voice laced with an affected blasé tone, “wanted to check that you’re doing ok.”

“Yeah,” you grimaced, glad he couldn’t see, “I’m doing well.”

“Then what was that this afternoon?” He asked, dropping any of the pretence and zeroing in on the point. You winced again and closed your eyes, mediating on your options. Were it any other being on this planet, you would have brushed them off with a vapid, irritating ‘what was what?’ But this was Jungwoo, so you swallowed your pride and beat your anxiety into submission, and trusted him.

“You know how Yukhei and I went on a day trip the other day on his bike?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, the more time I spend with him alone the more I realise that my feelings for him are…changing.”

“Changing,” Jungwoo repeated matter-of-factly.

“Like,” you hated how difficult it was to just come out and say it to him, to explain how you felt, “I’ve noticed that I think I find him very attractive.”

“You’ve always said he was attractive,” Jungwoo probed, not letting you weasel around the topic.

“But I think _I’m_ now starting to maybe find him attractive. In an ‘I might like him’ sort of way.”

“You think that? Or is that what’s happening?”

“That’s what’s happening?”

“And you’re shutting down because of it.”

“I’m shutting down because of it,” you nodded into the dark solitude of your bedroom, “you know I get like this when I develop feelings for people.”

Jungwoo was silent for a while, so prolonged was the moment that you had to check the call hadn’t dropped. Then he sighed, because he had had this conversation so many times before. “I know how flighty you are with commitment in that way,” he conceded, and despite the repetitive conversation that he could basically be reading from a script at this point, his voice was still genuine and patient, “which is annoying but not a big deal when it’s some random guy from one of your tutorials or in your group assignments who you don’t really know a whole lot about and will never see again. But this is Yukhei, Y/N. He’s one of your best friends.”

He stopped talking for a bit, before finally saying, “I think, if you possibly can, you should ignore your feelings.”

A shockwave slammed through you, your stomach contracting uncomfortably. That was not in the script. Jungwoo normally told you to go for it, and when you ultimately got too frightened of giving yourself over emotionally and disappeared like a ghost from the life of whichever boy it was that time, dropping all communication, avoiding conflict and never seeing or mentioning them again, Jungwoo the sole constant in your life other than your family.

“Right,” you answered him, your voice tight.

“It’s not because I don’t want you to be happy, or because your feelings are wrong or anything,” Jungwoo rushed, his soft voice uncharacteristically urgent, “I also don’t want you to think I don’t know that Yukhei is a good guy or that I don’t think that he’s into you. But, Y/N, you have a history of breaking hearts to protect your own, and I don’t want the same thing to happen and your relationship with Yukhei to be ruined.”

You had never expected him to voice all of your fears, but, after all, he did know you better than you knew yourself.

“I also have a selfish reason for you not to give it a go,” Jungwoo continued, “and I’m going to tell you because I’m always honest with you. Maybe if he wasn’t in Citizen I’d say go for it, what do you have to lose? But we finally have this band together, and it looks like we’re going somewhere with it, and—”

“Jungwoo,” you interrupted him, your voice thick with emotion, “it’s ok. I get it.”

“Y/N, I’m sorry.”

You didn’t say it was ok, because it very frankly was not, but you bid him a good night and hung up. His words had stung, and you were mad at him, but you couldn’t stay mad with him because he had only been honest with you. You couldn’t have expected an impartial opinion, because he wasn’t impartial at all. You shouldn’t have expected him to encourage the same cyclical, destructive behaviour of your past, either. And you didn’t want to lose Yukhei as a friend if things went pear-shaped. Jungwoo had probably told you what you really needed to hear.

And so you allowed yourself to be angry, furious even, that night, and when the sun rose the next morningyou shed any anger at your best friend and any thoughts of Yukhei in any sort of romantic setting, and continued to go about your day. You spent your Saturday working, and then that night you caught the train to your university, met Yuta at the train station and walked the ten minutes to the live music venue they’d be playing that night. You went back to taking photos, ignoring thoughts of how good Yukhei looked on stage with the red lights shining behind him, giving him a pulsating aura of passion as he played chord after manic chord along to the song. You replaced those thoughts with exposure and camera settings and which of the two lenses you’d brought with you were more appropriate. You edited photos and put together videos for them to post on their socials to promote the band at upcoming gigs, and to promote their original music which was becoming more and more unique and polished.

Things weren’t so cut and dry for you, you were not a robot. You kept a polite distance from Yukhei for a week or two, but once the anxiety of having to face him stopped making you physically sick, you even went back to hanging out with him, at first with others, and then back to one on one. Because you really did get along well, with a sort of ease that was never so immediate with others.

You were still working with them as some sort of quasi-creative director, and when they released their first original song and decided to create a music video to put with you, you were obviously the first choice for director.

There was no big budget, or any budget at all really, so you filmed them playing the song in different locations—in Jungwoo’s garage, in the middle of the local dog park, at one of their bigger shows—and then filled the extra space around those shots with b-roll of them just being them. There was no great artistic vision to it, it was more an introduction to who they were as a group. You didn’t think anything extravagant would suit the song, anyway, which was a punchy rock song with distinctive bass, a catchy riff and strong drum beat complimented perfectly by Kun’s keys, all supporting Jungwoo’s voice as if they had been born to make music together. You cut it together over the course of a sleepless week, showed it to all of them for their approval (which they naturally gave) before posting it to their Youtube and cross-promoting it on their other platforms. The views started to pick up and comments rolled in, several of which on a specific topic stuck out to you.

**_Yukhei at 3:42!!_ **

**_Who is he looking at at 3:42-3:47??_ **

More comments came in agreeing with the first few. You went to that moment in the video, and were vaguely surprised that it was pretty much the only b-roll clip with one of the boys looking in the direction of the camera. But even here he wasn’t looking at the camera, but past it, at you. His expression morphed in those seconds from rambunctious, as was the tone of the song and video, to soft as he cast a smile in your direction. It wasn’t something you had noticed, your brain having retrained itself to overlook anything that could provoke heart palpitations. You were horrified that your first thoughts were whether Yukhei was reading those comments, whether he thought they were reading too far into a simple glance. And then you were panicking as your emotions resurfaced, that maybe he _was_ into you like that? For so many people to notice, surely…

You angrily banished the thoughts, not prepared to relapse after so much progress had been made. The r-education process had been taxing on your mind, heart and soul, and a few Youtube comments weren’t going to change that. But there were _quite_ a few comments, to be fair.

The video continued to garner interest, the undeniable likability of the boys causing contagious excitement. So you should not have been as shocked as you were when Jungwoo called you up one afternoon to let you know they had all decided to drop out of university to continue to pursue music.

“What?” You struggled to mask your bafflement, “What did your parents say?”

“They yelled quite a few things, but I decided not to listen,” Jungwoo admitted.

“Well,” you took only a moment to deliberate, “that does seem like the sensible next step. You guys are going to make it big, none of you need engineering degrees, obviously. Proud of you for making the decision, Jungwoo.” And you were. He was notoriously easily manipulated by his parents’ expectations. This was definitely not in their twenty-five year plan for their son, but unless a catastrophe occurred, Citizen was looking liker a safer and safer bet. So after reassuring him a couple more times that you believed he’d made the right choice, you hung up and thought little more of it. You wouldn’t have an obvious choice for exam-season study buddy sessions anymore, but that was a small price to pay for their continuing success.

But later that night you were woken in your bed by your phone incessantly vibrating on your nightstand. It rang through once and you ignored it, still on the cusp of sleep. But just as you were ready to slip back over the edge and into the abyss, it started to ring again and dragged you into the world of the conscious. You rolled over and flicked your bedside lamp on, yanking your phone towards you with misdirected aggression. The time indicated it was three in the morning, and the caller ID informed you it was Yukhei disturbing your sleep.

You answered it, irritated arrows firing at him down the phone, “Jungwoo told me you’re all dropping out, but _some people_ still have to go to university tomorrow and need sleep to function, Yukhei.”

The phone line was silent, and you thought that maybe this was an alternate timeline in which Yukhei was capable of taking offence. You were further bewildered when what sounded like a gasp forced through a wall of tears was the first thing you heard from him. “Oh my god, Yukhei?” There were more sounds of gentle crying, the sort of desperate sadness that creeps up on you in the middle of the night, and overwhelms before you realise it. “Yukhei, what’s going on?” You were panicking. Again, he didn’t say anything, “You have to answer me. Where are you?”

“At home,” his voice was broken and croaky.

“I’m on my way.”

You bundled yourself out of bed, pulling on slippers that should never venture outside of the house unless there was a dire emergency, grabbed an extra blanket and hurried to your car. You turned the radio off as you drove the fifteen minutes it would take you to get to him, preferring the silence for clarity of thought.

When you arrived at his house after what felt like an epoch, you noticed a shadowy figure sat on his front doorstep. You were going to turn off the car and get out, but before you’d even come to a stop Yukhei stood up and paced quickly to your car, slipping into the passenger seat. It was dark, the only light giving you a view of his features coming from the crescent moon. He was staring straight ahead, his hair hiding his eyes, his lips a straight line. He was no longer crying, but from what you could tell from his profile he had only recently stopped. You waited for him to say something, and when he didn’t you pulled away from the curb, driving five minutes to the local sports field, where you pulled into the carpark and shut off the engine. As you turned the key, the lights in the car allowed you to get a better look at him. Dark circles and dry lips and a faintly red nose. His hair was in disarray, his stare was vacant. The lights dimmed again, plunging you back into darkness. You didn’t move to turn them back on. Instead you waited in silence, removing your seatbelt and pushing your seat back and tucking your knees to your chest, and just waited.

You weren’t sure he’d ever speak, that maybe he just wanted company in a dark hour. But then he startled you from reverie, “You said Jungwoo told you.” His voice was no longer thick with emotion, but rather hollow, lacking any piece of his personality you’d ever known.

“Yeah, he told me this afternoon.”

“What do you think?”

This seemed to you like a question loaded with far more meaning than your answer to Jungwoo a few hours earlier. You couldn’t tell if this was the cause of his unhappiness or a change of topic altogether, and you feared guessing wrong could be disastrous.

You decided to be honest, “I told him I thought it was the right decision.”

He looked at you, the angles of his face brought into a beautiful, haunting juxtaposition between light and shade under the moonlight. His gaze implored you, of what you still couldn’t tell. “You did?”

“Yeah.”

“You don’t think it’s a mistake?”

“I don’t.”

He looked away from you, redirecting his gaze to the ceiling and slamming his head against the carseat headrest.

“Do you feel like it’s a mistake?” You asked, breaching the silence again to try and keep some of the momentum.

“I don’t know,” the three words erupted with such immediacy and force you jumped, blinking at him in surprise. You didn’t think Yukhei would give so much weight to his own doubts, but then again you knew he was smart, that he thought about things deeply. You felt bad for being surprised by this emotion coming from him, no matter how unfamiliar.

“It’s a one in a million chance, right? That we’re successful in this fucked up industry we’re trying to make it in? So many people, so many _talented_ people crash and burn. What makes us so different? We’re not Mozart or Freddie Mercury. Me and my guitar aren’t Apollo and his lyre. We’re just a bunch of university kids kidding ourselves into thinking this’ll work out because none of us want to work an office job for the rest of our lives. Why would anyone want to listen to _me_ play guitar?”

“Because you _are_ good, Yukhei,” you thought through each of your words, “you surprise me with your talent so often, because you always seem to be surpassing the way you were playing the last time I saw you. And sure, lots of talented people never make it, which is one of the many reasons you should be taking these signs of your upcoming success as a chance a lot of people don’t get, and even more reason to give it all you’ve got. Because if you don’t, and you do end up working an office job because it was the safe option, the what-ifs will torment you. I’m sure of it.”

He mulled over your words in the dark morning quiet, “You’re right. I would torment myself.”

“I’m sure it’s scary to drop out of something you’ve always been told you have to do to have any sort of successful future,” you tentatively continued, “but university will always be there. Citizen, this music thing you’re doing, that’s the here and now.”

He ran a hand down his face, before turning to you and flashing you a wobbly, genuine smile. His hand reached over and squeezed your knee in a sign of gratitude. You placed your hand over his and squeezed back. Then he retracted his hand and you put your seatbelt on and readjusted your seat and drove him home in silence, in peace.

* * *

 

As you had predicted, casting university aside in favour of their music was the correct decision, after all. Citizen released a few more singles, each inflating their fanbase and garnering hundred of thousands of streams. By the time they had five or six singles out, they were playing pretty much exclusively their own music at gigs, and the audiences were loving it. They were coming into themselves, establishing their sound, growing more confident in the direction of the band with every passing day. Things were moving ahead, and they were making it happen all on their own.

At least that was the case, until an email appeared in the business email account for the band. A record label, one that had quite the catalogue of impressive talent under their charge, asked if Citizen would be interested in meeting one of their representatives to discuss a record deal.

The boys had been over the moon with excitement. It was palpable proof that they were going somewhere, that their music was as good as they thought it was, hoped it was. When they went to the meeting, you had to explain to them why obviously you wouldn’t be joining them, that you weren’t actually a member of their band. They left for the meeting in the morning in Johnny’s truck, and returned hours later to confirm that they’d agreed. They would officially be signing to a label.

You were not a fool, you know that this would mean profound changes to the current order. In a matter of a few days they had a management team, access to professional tier studios, producers, more money. And when the label suggested a music video for the upcoming release of the first single off their new EP, they offered a director and film crew and money for actors and actresses.

To the band’s credit, they had brought this to you before they agreed to anything. They had looked like nervous kids, practically wringing their hands with worry. But you had told them they’d be insane to pass up the chance to work with professionals. If they liked what you could do on your DSLR, imagine what they’d think of a proper film crew? They still seemed reluctant—they’d worked with you from the start, after all—but they followed you advice and agreed to work with the team their label supplied.

You went with them to the shoot, which was nothing particularly adventurous, if you were being honest. The director had seen how popular that one moment of Yukhei had been in the first video, and wanted to see how fans would respond to him playing one half of a young couple, the love interest being a young actress. The other boys still wanted to keep a portion of the focus on their music, so, like before, scenes of them playing would cut between the narrative. You went along to take photos of the process, which Jungwoo insisted upon.

They’d taken the production to the coast, this specific scene taking place at a lookout. Once they discovered Yukhei rode a motorbike, they rapidly wrote it into the short script. Again, perhaps a more cliche route than you would have taken. But you were not the director, and these people were being paid to do what they do.

As mature as you were and in control of your feelings as you assured yourself you could be, watching Yukhei astride his bike with the beautiful girl wrapped around him incited the malevolent spirit of jealousy that dwelled in the recesses of your soul. It was the ugliest trait in anyone, reflecting the insides of the person more than anything else. It made you sick, and you were quickly unable to watch, opting instead to peer at the monitor from your peripheral vision.

Whilst the scenes of the band as a whole had gone perfectly, the director was far less satisfied with the current scene. The issue was pretty obvious: the ever unflappable Wong Yukhei was being stiff and awkward. Every time he had to interact with the girl something about him seemed strained, and when the director would call cut he would turn away and visibly wince at himself.

“Let’s take a break,” the director said, running her hands over her eyes and walking away from the camera. The actress dismounted the bike and moved towards the refreshment table, apparently feeling the tension as well. The boys moved towards Yukhei and you naturally gravitated towards them as well.

“You’re doing great, man,” Johnny clapped him on the back. He shot the older boy a glare before crossing his arms over the handlebars and resting his forehead.

“I am not. I just can’t relax.”

“You’re normally so charming, Yukhei,” you added, hoping to subtly stroke his ego. He winced again.

“Yeah, maybe, but that’s because I don’t _have_ to be charming normally. This whole thing relies on me looking cool. I’m not an actor. I play guitar.”

“You can also do donuts on a motorbike,” Kun added, unsure how to cheer his friend up. Your eyes widened.

“You can? I didn’t know that.”

He visibly perked up, like a puppy as the sight of a treat, “Wanna see?”

Ever the adrenaline junky and fuel to his worse ideas, you nodded eagerly and took a few steps back.

He revved the engine, breaking and accelerating at the same time so the back wheel spun in place whilst the front wheel stayed still, throwing up dust and smoke. Keeping one foot on the ground, he eased up on the break part of the way and turned the bike hard, causing the back wheel to skid around, the circles starting slow and building in space until he was the centre of a whirlwind of dust. You whooped and cheered, and goaded him into driving onto the tarmac and doing a wheelie on the quiet road. Loving the second hand thrill of the sound of the engine and the grin on his face, when he asked if you wanted to jump on the back and see how quickly you could go from zero to sixty with two people, you were rapidly climbing onto the bike behind him, strapping on the helmet the actress had discarded.

“You’ve really gotta hold on tight this time,” he told you, and you happily complied, squeezing your arms around his waist. It was a totally different sensation this time. He was in an expensive real leather jacket, but you were in nothing but a t-shirt and jeans instead of kevlar armour.

After whizzing up and down the road a couple of times, your euphoric, crazed laughter lost in the air speeding past you, the allotted time for the break was pretty much over. By the time you came to a stop and pulled the helmet from your head to give Yukhei a proper hug without your bobble-head getting in the way, you noticed the director and cameraman had been filming you the whole time.

“Stay right there,” she ordered, then muttered to the camera man about a close up. You thwarted their plan when you immediately froze, tensing up against Yukhei and making fists against his leather-clad back. He felt the change, and reached around to rub your knee soothingly, brushing his thumb back and forth in a way that distracted you from the cameras and focused you on the warm body flush against you. Perhaps if you had been dating him, and comfortable with his physical contact, and weren’t suppressing your feelings for the good of his future, this would have been soothing. Instead it prompted a curtain of red to fall over your face. You felt like the beacon at the top of radio towers.

But apparently you weren’t so tragically flustered, because the director seemed satisfied with the shots. It didn’t really matter what you looked like, anyway. It all came down to Yukhei, and how comfortable he looked whilst looking at you. And for that purpose you had managed to do what the model could not.

* * *

 

Even though the band no longer had a schedule dictated by tutorials, lectures and assignments, you were not so fortunate. But they were still your friends, and still happy to study with you, and by study it meant you getting your uni work done whilst they tried to channel those creative juices towards the album they were composing.

Scene up. Enter: Yukhei’s bedroom. He was propped up against some pillows on his bed with his seldom seen acoustic guitar positioned against his thigh, and you were curled up in his desk chair that he never used anymore, trying to figure out why your recent additions to your portfolio were so severely lacking. It didn’t take long before you felt yourself going insane, so you turned to Yukhei and interrupted his plucking for a short reprieve.

“How’s the album going?”

He puckered his lips as he pondered for a moment, “Pretty well, I guess. Jungwoo had come up with lyrics to a melody Kun put together. Actually, they’ve been doing most of the heavy lifting, I think. Yuta and Johnny and I are just sort of fitting in around them.”

“You haven’t come up with anything?”

“I never said that,” he chuckled, turning back to his guitar and strumming with more purpose. You took that as the end of the conversation, about to turn back to your work when you realised he was playing a melody that you didn’t recognise. When you looked back at him he was already looking at you, a small, easy smile on his lips, eyes at half mast as if he were used to playing the song with his eyes closed. He averted his gaze back to the strings, “I’ve come up with something.”

“Have you gone to Jungwoo for lyrics?”

“I’ve written some of my own,” a moment in bashful pause, “do you want to hear them?”

“Of course.”

He began softly strumming the melody on the guitar again, taking in deep breaths to steady his voice. He began to sing, and you weren’t sure what you had expected his voice to sound like, having never heard it on its own before.

_“I’ll meet you at the divide / To break the spell / A point where two worlds collide / Yeah, we’ll rebel…”_

It was quiet and poignant, a pleasant shiver running through your body at the surprising falsetto to his usually deep voice. You moved from the chair to the end of his bed to better hear him.

“ _If I get high enough / If I get high enough / Will I see you again?”_ At the chorus he alternated between the gentle strums and intermittent plucking. His voice was not as clear or strong or confident as Jungwoo’s, but it was particularly beautiful because he was singing his own song. You inched closer as he played through the bridge, his lilting voice accompanying the guitar here and there. You could tell he wasn’t a singer, but it was bleeding obvious he was a musician. His strumming trailed off, indicating the end of the song, his face breaking into a boyish smile.

“It’s not too bad, right?”

“It’s beautiful, Yukhei,” you breathed, hoping he could tell you were being genuine. If the way his grin broadened even further was any indicator, he could feel it in your words.

“It’s about you.”

“What?” You furrowed your brows.

“It’s about you.”

You weren’t sure what to say, “You don’t have to get high to see me, Yukhei.”

He shook his head like he was explaining to a child why they couldn’t eat ice-cream for every meal, “It’s a version of you that seems fleeting to me. A you I see from the corner of my eye, but if I try to look straight on, that you disappears. Like it’s a trick of the light. Or like you’re hiding it from me.”

You understood.

You crept closer still, taking note of the way Yukhei leant an imperceptible amount further over his guitar.

“You’re too clever for you own good, Yukhei. Not enough people know that.”

“Did I hit the nail on the head?”

“Maybe.”

He chuckled, “You should stop underestimating me,” and then he bit the bullet and closed the distance between you and him, roughly discarding his guitar to curl a hand in your hair and bring you closer. You sighed into the kiss, one hand gripping his knee as the other came up to hold his jaw, making sure that when you detached for a breath he didn’t move too far away. It was a passionate kiss, full of all the stolen glances and promising looks of the last few months. Then it was slower, revelling in the quiet moment you were sharing then and there. Then it was quick pecks, first on your lips, then the corners of your mouth, your cheeks, your nose, your eyelids and your forehead. You were interrupted by a snapchat notification on your phone. His smile could illuminate crypts and make them feel like home. You expected you looked as foolishly happy.

“Fuck,” was the first word you said, your smile degenerating into a cringe as you scrunched your eyes closed, “how am I meant to tell Jungwoo.”

* * *

 

Telling Jungwoo had been difficult, but the perks of always being honest with your best friend of more than a decade is that it’s actually easier to tell the truth than it is to deceive them. There hadn’t been yelling, but certainly raised voices and strained conversations. Tensions had been high for the first month of you and Yukhei together, but after that Jungwoo seemed to relax. You had never lasted so long without packing your bags and booking a ticket for the first flight out of a relationship. Perhaps in the same way you had noticed something different about the band this time round, Jungwoo could see something different, something special between you and Yukhei. Maybe Yukhei was the secret ingredient.

He didn’t particularly have time to worry by a certain point, anyway, because with the album all written and going through rigorous production processes and planning their first live tour, Jungwoo was busier than he had ever been in his life. And by some peculiar stroke of luck, a benevolent twist of fate or the alignment of the stars, their tour was during your summer break, so when they asked you to accompany them as the tour photographer, you were able to say yes. You spent your days in the tour bus provided by their label travelling between cities, seeing sights when you had a spare moment, and your nights in front of the barricade and off to the sides of the stage, taking photos of the boys living their dreams. You were also absorbed into the recording progress, accompanying them to the studio as they re-recorded parts and decided how everything was to sound for their first EP.Some industry people thought you were just a groupie tagging along, and you even doubted yourself sometimes, whether you should be there at all. Your relationship with Yukhei shouldn’t give you a free pass into their careers, shouldn’t get you more involved than necessary. But they made sure you never felt like you were dispensable, asking your opinion on lyrics and remixes and different tones.

This was the arrangement for their first EP, and you were also very present during the recording of their first album, and went on their next tour with them as well, travelling further afield than before, reaching more people, playing to larger audiences, more enthused audiences, audiences that screamed their original lyrics back at them. They were doing it. Everything was working out.

Proof from hereYukhei was not unflappable throughout the process, but you had quickly adapted to being his first port of call when his overzealous mind quickly went too far in the wrong direction. The conversations often emerged when his life slowed down from the manic race against time sensitive relevancy and inspiration to a lackadaisical crawl. This one occurred when he was at your house on a Thursday afternoon, his band practice finished, your morning classes completed and your afternoon homework temporarily forsaken. It was an unusually temperate afternoon amid a hot summer day. A cool change had blown through from the sea, and was now flowing through the open windows of your living room and disturbing the pages of the open novel discarded weeks ago on your coffee table.

You and Yukhei were sprawled on top of one another, in direct line of fire of the breeze. Your cheek was pressed against his chest and your body fit between his legs, he had one arm slung around your shoulders and the other acting as a pillow for his head. His eyes were closed and his lips were parted slightly as he dozed in the peace. He had started to live for these moments with you with the same dependence that he lived for the moments on stage. Every moment that comprised his life were spent looking forward to the high vitality of the stage or the blissful reprieve of you. Moments like these, with your weight on his chest confirming to him that you were real, were as much a part of his perfect dream as the nights in front of a crowd.

The thin pages of the novel on the table skipped forwards and backwards in their narrative, at the mercy of the transient wind. Flies were buzzing against the glass panes above the open window, desperate for escape and blind to the pathway beneath them. A child screamed in delight in a backyard a few houses down. Your house was empty and silent with both parents at work. At some point you and Yukhei would drag yourselves to the kitchen and crack open one of the cheap bottles of white wine in the fridge that was left over from having the band and a few friends around to yours last weekend. You’d also probably heat up left over Thai take-away from the night before for dinner. The sky was scattered with clouds, insinuating a nice sunset in a few hours.

They were bittersweet for Yukhei, those languorous moments. He was relaxed beneath you, but it was only a matter of time before you felt him tense slightly, his fingers stop moving idly against your shoulder blade, his breathing hollow out in a manner barely noticeable to anyone unless they had their cheek pressed to the skin and bones covering his lungs. You noticed the change and immediately propped yourself up on his chest, hand squirming out from where it had been squished against the couch to brush his hair up off his forehead, bringing his thoughts back to the present.

“What’s up?”

His big eyes went from vacant to focused as he redirected his gaze from the world beyond the window to the body pressed against him. He blinked, and for a moment there was a flash of panic that you had slowly become more familiar with since that night in your car over a year ago.

“Hmm?”

You flicked him gently on the cheek, “Tell me what you’re thinking.”

He tilted his head back and stared at the ceiling, “Nothing new.”

“Worried what will happen if things don’t work out?”

He sighed in the affirmative. “It never crosses my mind when we’re performing or in the studio. But right now it feels so distant, you know? Like it’s not my reality. It’s someone else with my face living that dream. I feel like a different person lying here with you.”

This was more information than he usually gave you when you tried to pry at his emotions. For someone so personable, he closed off a large portion of his thoughts and feelings a lot of the time. As if he had more important things to concern himself with.

“Is that a bad thing? Like,” you tried to organise your thoughts and make the most of a moment when he was willing to talk about these sorts of things, “is it a bad feeling, the one you’re having right now? Different in a bad way?”

“No,” he replied immediately without having to think, “not bad. I’m happy here with you. But worrying, maybe? Like I’m getting complacent? When we’re writing music or performing, it feels like there’s no possibility other than making it big. But when I’m here with you I realise it’s not all that simple. I feel guilty, like I don’t want it enough if I’m this happy here in this moment. And if I don’t want it enough, why should I deserve to achieve my dreams? Shouldn’t it go to someone who wants it solely, more than anything?”

You grabbed his face in both hands and squished his muscles until his face was slightly contorted, “It’s ok to enjoy balance in your life,” you tried to tell him with a tone that left no room for argument. He didn’t say anything to that, and you sighed, “The problem with you having a surprisingly big brain in that handsome head is that you use far too much of it to worry about things that will work themselves out, Xuxi.”

“You think it’ll work itself out?” he asked, tentative relief heavy in his tone.

“Maybe not everything, I can’t promise it’ll all be so easy, but I know you have the determination to sort things out even if problems don’t fix themselves.”

He smiled at you, the creases between his brows finally smoothing into nonexistence, “Why do you have so much faith in me?”

“Because I’ve seen you get this far, and the beginning is the second hardest part of any process.”

“What’s the hardest part?”

“Ending. It’s hard to know if and when it’s right to finish something. And it’s as scary as starting. But that’s not something you need to worry about now,” although you knew he would, anyway.

He nodded, “We’ll probably have this exact conversation in four months time.”

“And in four years time,” you broached, the nerves attached to talking about such a distant future quickly soothed when his eyes shone and he pressed a chaste kiss to your lips.

Then your whole world was disrupted as he propelled both you and him off the couch in a fluid motion, hoisting you off the ground and carrying you quickly, awkwardly into the kitchen and depositing you on one of the countertops. Your laughter contributed to the melee of summer afternoon sounds as his large body moved through your tiny kitchen, stooping over the fridge as he searched for the cheap chardonnay.

“Ah-ha!” He grabbed the bottle from the fridge and grabbed two plastic wine glasses from the drying rack by the sink and emptied the bottle’s contents into the faux-crystalware. He extended one to you and clinked the rim of his glass with yours, moving to stand between your legs with the hand that was not holding the glass resting on your knee. His lips curved in a toothless grin.

“What are we cheers-ing to?” You asked, your heart hammering giddily. You didn’t love surprises, but you loved the fact he kept you on your toes.

“I’m cheers-ing to you.”

You dug a finger into his side admonishingly in a way to deal with your delighted embarrassment, your cheeks burning and your nose scrunching. He squeezed your knee in retaliation.

“Then I’ll cheers to you,” you retorted.

“Deal,” he smiled and clinked your glasses together again, before taking a sip of the underwhelming golden liquid. The taste didn’t really matter, though. You were both too wrapped up in each other to really discern the acidic flavour. When he set his glass down and gathered your face in his hands and connected his lips with yours, it was all sweet.

* * *

 

You had been right in predicting that the only way for Citizen was up. A few months passed and they had their foot in the door, a few more and they had undeniable traction, and a couple of years and they were almost famous, or at least widely known. The sort of band people took pride in knowing ‘before they got popular,’ although popular might still be a generous word. And you stuck to your degree, graduated at the top of your class with the highest honours and a portfolio acclaimed by your professors.

“I’m so proud of you for sticking it out, Y/N,” Yukhei murmured, stroking your hair away from your face. You were laid on his chest, staring at the glow in the dark star stickers on the ceiling. The previous family had a little boy enamoured with the galaxy, and when Yukhei had moved into the room he’d found them too charming to remove. You loved the yellowy-green phosphorescent glow just as much, a light in the dark. The colour was not comforting, but something about the light was warm. The associated feeling of Yukhei’s skin against yours, his arms around you, his chin resting atop your head also would have had something to do with it.

“I’m proud of me, too,” you admitted. The thought of giving it all up had been an ever present demon at your shoulder. But you had prevailed.

“Now we don’t have to worry about whether or not you’ll be able to come on tour with us.”

You stiffened infinitesimally. “Why’s that?” You ask, sitting up and shifting out of his hold, in part so that you could see him properly, but also so he wouldn’t notice any change in your body that he had come to know so well.

He smiled at you, “Because you won’t have to go to class for semesters at a time, or have assignments due.”

“You’d get sick of me if I came on tour with you all the time.”

“That’s ridiculous, I would not.”

“The other guys might though.”

“I think they’re used to you by now, babe,” he laughed, but you could see an inkling of concern around the edges of his countenance.

“I can’t keep riding the coattails of your success for ever.”

He sat up, any ease previously there replaced by suspicious perturbation, “I wasn’t aware that was what you were doing.”

“I mean,” you closed your eyes and tried to figure out how to stop digging the hole that you had started, “of course it’s not, Xuxi. This band’s success is down to you and the boys, and I’m grateful you’ve let me come along and help out where I can.”

“But you have something to tell me.”

You nodded slowly, “I do. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do after I finished my undergraduate, where I would go, how I would get work, what sort of work I wanted to do. I don’t want to be mistaken as your groupie forever, after all.” You wanted to reach and grab his hands where they lay limp in his lap, but you forced yourself to keep your own on your thighs, unmoving.

“So, to keep my options open, I applied for a postgraduate course, a Masters at Yale School for Fine Arts. I didn’t apply anywhere else because I figured if I didn’t get into the school of my dreams I wouldn’t bother, it wasn’t something I was even sure I wanted to do. I definitely didn’t really think I’d get in.”

“But you did, didn’t you,” you squeezed your eyes shut at Yukhei’s tone, normally so deep and rich and warm, now a careful, affected, even timbre.

“I did. I got in.”

“Have you accepted yet?”

“No,” you shook your head, “I only found out a couple of days ago. You’re the first person I’ve told.”

He wasn’t looking at you, looking past you, at the dark, at nothing as the pieces slotted together, started to make some sort of ordered sense in his mind.

“You should have talked to me about this,” he said, voice tight, “I always talk to you about my future. Because you’re in every future I’ve ever imagined for the past two years.”

You furrowed your brows, “Of course we’ve talked about your future. It’s bright, ridiculously bright. It was always fun to think about where the band would be one, two, five, ten years from now. But _everyone_ is talking about your future. I’ve barely talked to myself about this,” you paused, “and can you clarify for me why a future where I go to school for another year or two is going to be a future without you in it?”

“When did I say that?” His voice was climbing in volume.

“Just then!” You floundered, “Or you insinuated it! That if I’m not a roadie for Citizen then I’m not in any future you’ve imagined.”

“Insinuated?” He fired the damning word back at you with poison in his tone, pushing off his bed to pace his bedroom floor, “Don’t put words in my mouth. But of course I haven’t imagined any other futures, ones where you and the band aren’t tied together. I didn’t know we were considering other options.”

“I understand you wanted me to talk to you about it—”

“Of course I wanted you to talk to me about it! I want to know everything about you! I want to be a consideration in your future as well!”

“You are, Yukhei!” You were both yelling, now, “of course you are! You’re the only person I’ve ever loved like this, you’re part of every choice I make, countless times a day! Down to the grocery list and what temperature I set the climate control to and what music I play over the speakers and what movies I pick. Of course I considered you when I applied. But I didn’t know pursuing a chance to learn from some amazing artists, to have access to opportunities my peers can only dream of, and having you supporting me were mutually exclusive.”

He fumed in silence, one hand gripping his hip, one holding his taught jaw.

Then, “I don’t want you to go.”

“That much is clear.”

“It’s too far away.”

“Don’t make excuses, Yukhei,” he was being selfish, but only because he loved you. You knew that. But you also didn’t want to sacrifice a career doing something really creative, the type of artist you had dreamed of and admired since you were aware of the art world, for the sake of trailing behind Yukhei as he realised the long-standing dreams of his own, just because he loved you. But your pride and your anger prevented you from voicing any of that now.

“I won’t be able to stand it if you go,” Yukhei threatened, his dark brown eyes glinting with something manic, his muscular frame coiled tight, ready to explode in every direction, “I can’t do long distance.”

“You won’t do long distance,” you clarified, shirking the emotion that had been welling up inside you, lowering the volume as your throat began to strain, the words leaving your mouth with the sentimental intonation of a robot.

“It wouldn’t work,” he shook his head, “I won’t do it.”

“Then I guess you won’t,” you closed your eyes, trying to ward off the headache flourishing between your temples.

“You won’t go?” His voice was hopeful, even though he knew he was wrong.

“I’ll go,” you refuted, “I have to go.”

“You want to go.”

“Yeah,” you nodded firmly, “that, too.”

You both sat there in thick silence for a minute or two, waiting to see if the other had anything else to say. But eventually you decided you had tortured yourself enough. You stood up, shoved your phone into your pocket and moved quietly towards the door, giving Yukhei’s statue a wide berth, as though you feared he carried the plague. And then you were two steps past him, three, passing the threshold to his room, closing his door behind you, down the stairs, out onto the street, into your car, gone.

* * *

 

Four months later, you left. Some may think four months was plenty of time to reconcile, but it is amazing how easy it is to avoid someone if they are avoiding you, too. Yukhei and you went from spending every day together to becoming strangers avoiding one another in familiar places. You distanced yourself from the band, no longer showing up to practices or spending time in the studio. The other boys noticed, of course they did, but they didn’t say anything. The same way people notice lipstick on someone’s teeth, or a stain on their shirt. Bringing it up might cause more trouble than its worth. Especially if it can’t be fixed.

Jungwoo asked you about it when you dropped off the face of the earth, when Yukhei vanished from your social media and you from his, when you left the band group chats. He was there in a flash, at your front door, demanding to know what happened. And you told him. Told him you were going away to further your career, really give it a go.

“And?”

You frowned at him, “And what?”

“And why else did you break up? Is the distance the only thing?” He asked, saying ‘the distance’ like one might say ‘the coffee’ or ‘the laundry.’

“Yeah,” you felt indignant that it seemed so paltry to him, “the distance was the only thing.”

Jungwoo’s round, dark eyes looked at you blankly for a moment, and you could tell he didn’t believe you. But you didn’t know what else to say. So you invited him in and you made hot chocolate from the powder mix and hot water because you’d run out of milk, but if you put enough powder in the cup it wasn’t so bad. And he talked mildly about the band, but he may as well have been talking about the European refugee crisis or the weather, for how much you were paying attention. You felt bad, but not any worse than you did about everything else. And then Jungwoo left, and you didn’t talk about it again.

But really, you were at a terrible disadvantage. When would you learn to pick your fights? Because whilst you unfollowed him and stopped talking to him, you didn’t have the mind to block him from your life completely. It was not as if you’d broken up with him because you didn’t love him anymore. You also still had copious amounts of love for the other boys, as well, and the band in general, and you wanted to follow their journey even if you weren’t a part of it anymore. That was your doing. You’d chosen to get off halfway to the destination and head in another direction.

And whilst Yukhei didn’t have to see or hear about you anymore, your life was flooded with him. The boy you used to spend your days with was coming up on your Instagram timeline in sponsored promotional photos, people you went to university with attended the gigs, took photos with the boys and posted them online, his face was on posters plastered around campus and the surrounding area. You were sure there was something in your brain searching for him, as well. You saw him in the back of the other boys’ social media stories, or in photos. It didn’t take long for you to notice he often had a girl with him on nights out, but you didn’t look hard or long enough to see if it were different girls or the same over and over again. You didn’t know which would hurt more, and had no desire to find out through trial.

You also dated people casually. Kai from Open Media, Mark from an Art History elective, but nothing lasted longer than a couple of dates. You kept your heart caged in your chest, and when you’d locked it away once again there was an uneasy sigh of relief that escaped your mouth, the sort of combination only possible when you were sad something had ended, but you also didn’t have to worry anymore. You knew your heart was safe if you had it in your possession. As soon as you gave it to someone else it was at risk of being accidentally dropped or misplaced somewhere or forgotten about and sat on.

As soon as you boarded the plane the eyes you had felt following you from every corner of the city disappeared, as if they had lost sight of you and couldn’t find you again. You landed and stepped off the plane and threw all thoughts of Citizen and their lead guitarist from your mind, hurling your mind, body and soul into a new venture that, despite the turmoil it had instigated, you were excited to embark on.

And like any artistic endeavour that depends on the approval of others, your degree was all consuming in the best way for you at that time in your life. You had spent the previous four years sleeping hardly any and balancing far too many things on your plate, so the chance to really focus on your art was something of a relief, even if you did feel awful for being relieved to be away from your family and friends. It was only a year, though. They would still be there when you finished. When you went back. If you went back. And maybe they wouldn’t all be there. You imagined the band would outgrow your city pretty soon. Maybe they had already. You hadn’t been keeping up to date with what they were doing as much as a friend should, but it had become too distracting, too painful. You had other things to do. There was no time to wallow in nostalgia and homesickness and grief. But you knew they were on the up, as they deserved it. And sure, the first few weeks were consumed with thoughts of them, thoughts of _him_ despite your best intentions. But by the end of the school year, apart from Jungwoo who of course you kept in touch with, you managed to detach the band and the boys from your life, you could go days or weeks without thinking about them, you were moving on with your life, it seemed.

Or at least until you had to put together a final exhibition, complete with a short film as the centre piece, and naturally your supervisor liked your archival work far more than anything else you could come up with. Your footage of Yukhei, most of all. She also liked the way you worked with the old photos and footage, said it was obvious that the feelings had changed about the subject, that it came through your work like sunlight through a window. That’s what she called him, ‘the subject.’ You didn’t know if that was a kindness towards you or simple professionalism, but it certainly made it easier as you spent hours looking at his face, or the curves of his body in private photos you had taken just for you and him, never showed anyone. Photos of him reading in bed in the afternoon sun, sprawled out on the floor with his eyes closed after you’d scared him, reclined across the back seats of your little car with his legs hanging out the door. A close up of his hands, long fingers holding a guitar pick with a love heart drawn on with white-out, one half of his mouth lifted upwards in a smile, his fingers in his hair, the curve of his neck. You’d spent a lot of time taking photos and filming him, because he was the subject that inspired you most of all. You hadn’t looked at these in almost eighteen months. You’d almost left the orange hard drive back home, but had brought it just in case. Of what, you didn’t know until now.

Your graduation exhibition came upon you, and you tentatively messaged Jungwoo.

**How are you? Sorry we haven’t spoken in a few weeks, I know you’re always busy and I’m busy too. But I’m having an exhibition for the completion of my masters and I just thought that maybe I’d let you know? Incase on the off chance you have some time off and were interested? If not that’s totally fine, I understand. I’d love to have you here though.**

He texted you back immediately, asking for the dates, and once he had those he confirmed that he fortuitously had a break in his schedule then. You weren’t sure you believed him, thought you remembered him saying something about getting back in the studio last time you’d talked, but you didn’t question him on it. He was the one person you could count on to make time for you.

He made it for the second day of the exhibition weekend, which was in one of the interior galleries at your school. You’d met him there, and hadn’t been sure whether you could hug him or that would be weird, but he’d squashed any concerns by wrapping his arms around you and holding you close to his chest. You reached up and twisted strands of orange hair between your fingers.

“Interesting colour.”

“We had a run in with some bleach,” he chuckled, “and, oi, I don’t think it looks so bad. The others said it makes me unique.”

“That’s a nice word for odd.”

And with that, the pair of you fell back into old ways, and you took him inside and wandered around the exhibition with him. You didn’t meet his eye, keeping your gaze alternating from the prints to your shoes as you gestured vaguely. You weren’t sure there was much else to say about it all. You didn’t want to see the look on his face when he saw it was all of Yukhei. You couldn’t remember a time when you had been embarrassed in front of Jungwoo, but you knew this would be the first if you met his eyes. Or saw his expression. You were sure his eyes had nearly popped out of his head. Because how ridiculous was it for you to be displaying these after a year and half? Like you were hung up on him. It was made more embarrassing by the fact that Yukhei would have moved on long ago. Jungwoo might’ve even forgotten you and Yukhei had dated. Ok, perhaps that was a stretch. But you were still sure it would have surprised him.

You brought him around and stopped in front of the short film, just in time for it to loop back round to the start. You attentivelystudied the ceiling as it played, the gentle acoustic guitar and clips of conversation making your ears burn. You were desperate to look at Jungwoo, but couldn’t bring yourself to twist your neck and watch his expression.

The video ended and he grabbed you by the shoulders and spun you to face him. You tensed, but the look on his face was as gentle as usual, the proud father expression he got whenever he used to look at your creative ventures.

“This is amazing, Y/N,” he shook you gently with every word, “You made the right choice coming here.”

You hadn’t cried in months, and it had been over a year since you’d cried about this decision. But your eyes burned and overflowed as the world was lifted off your chest. “I did, didn’t I.”

“Yeah,” his voice wobbled with emotion, and he tucked you into a firm hug for his benefit and for yours. And you didn’t talk about the subject of your exhibition, or talk about any of the things that had been deliberately left unsaid all year. But you liked to think this time you didn’t talk about them because you didn’t need to. And you went to dinner and caught up on the past twelve months, and it was as easy as you had hoped it would be, and he was still your best friend just like he’d always said he would be, even when things moved forwards faster than you were prepared for.

When you’d left the exhibition centre with Jungwoo you hadn’t noticed him exchange a look with a tall, shadowy figure on the way out. You hadn’t seen the figure enter the room, and none of the other students milling around notice him either, despite his height and presence, due to the hood carefully covering his face. But the figure stayed a long time, and was the last person there when the security guard closed up for the night.

* * *

 

Your exhibition finished, Jungwoo went home, and in the following weeks you graduated and got your diploma, and you wrapped up the loose ends of your postgraduate life. It was your last week there, and you were planning to move out of your apartment a few days early and get home to your familiar city and your family and your dog. Jungwoo wouldn’t be there, the band was touring their latest album around the country. They were constantly on the move. But then Jungwoo sent you a text, telling you that he didn’t know your exact plans but they had a show in your city that Friday night, and he’d put your name at the door if you wanted to go.

Your immediate reaction had been flat out refusal. Going to their shows seemed like something you had done in a different era, in a different timeline. But it only took you a few minutes for your mind to start to waver, and then you began to think that one more time for memory’s sake wouldn’t be the end of the world. You didn’t even have to pay. You hadn’t even heard many of their new songs, only the ones Jungwoo sent you every now and then. You felt bad for not supporting him more, but he had reassured you that he understood. Everything takes time.

And so when Friday arrived you tugged on a pair of jeans and one of the first bands t-shirts Citizen ever released, downed a beer for a shot of liquid courage and forced yourself all the way to the venue. By the time you were getting your name checked by the bouncer, any second thoughts were redundant. You were swept inside the venue and let into the mosh pit from down the front, but you chose to stand behind the barricade with everyone else despite the security guard saying you had access to the gap between crowd and stage. You wanted to blend in, didn’t want them to see you.

They played a couple of their older songs, and a few newer ones you hadn’t heard before. Jungwoo’s voice was clear and beautiful and distinct, as it always had been, and you quickly remarked to yourself how much each of the others had changed, how much they had come into themselves as musicians. But naturally your eyes couldn’t avoid Yukhei’s tall profile in a white t-shirt with the sleeves sheared off and long legs wrapped in dark blue jeans. His golden skin gleamed with sweat and his fringe was sticking to his forehead. His hair had been dyed a sandy blond and the roots had grown out. The colour suited him. His brow was furrowed in concentration, but the grin on his face told anyone watching that he was having the time of his life, that he was where he belonged. He was glowing. You couldn’t look away.

One of their more up-tempo songs came to a close, and the boys wiped sweat from their eyes and grabbed at bottle of water from disembodied hands from the wings and exchanged quick words with each other as Jungwoo addressed the audience with seasoned ease.

“We’re going to do things, uh, a little differently for a moment, if that’s ok with you guys,” he grinned as the crowd cheered affirmatively, “you guys haven’t heard this one before.”

And then, to your confusion, Jungwoo moved backwards to rest on the elevated drum stage, leaving the microphone on its stand front and centre. You saw Yuta swap out his bass for an electric guitar, and your surprise deepened as Yukhei moved from his position off to the right to the centre of the stage, where Jungwoo had been moments before. He grinned easily at the audience, tilting his head to the side as he spoke to them, “You guys haven’t heard me sing like this before,” he chuckled, and it may have seemed relaxed, but you noticed the way his hands shook and his eyes were unnaturally focused, not scanning from side to side as he usually did when watching a crowd. Or used to. “I wrote this song quite a while ago, and never thought I’d perform it. But it’s important that I do, tonight.”

Murmurs washed through the crowd as he took a step back and exchanged a nervous smile with Yuta. People got out their phones to record him as the lights on the stage dimmed, leaving only the two guitarists illuminated like visions from the heavens.

The song began with Yukhei plucking gently on the strings, the softest sound the guitar had emanated all evening. Then he leant into the mic and began to sing, and you realised how you had never forgotten what he sounded like, although you’d only heard it a few times. He sounded like he’d been practicing. His voice was stronger, held the notes better. It lilted over the words, injecting feeling into every syllable. His deep voice climbed to a falsetto you didn’t think he was capable of. He sounded beautiful. Everyone in the crowd held their breath as they listened to him pour his heart out onto the spotlit stage.

But what had you transfixed were the lyrics of the chorus, which crescendoed so delicately, with such a subtle power that every word seemed to slam into your psyche.

_“So take from me / What you want / What you need / Take from me / Whatever you want / Whatever you need / But lover / Please stay with me.”_

You wished you could have compelled every word to fly over your head, for you to be lost in the sound of the metal strings vibrating in his hands, to not feel the meaning behind every word. Or at least the meaning you saw in the song. Because, to you, it sounded like he’d written this after you had fought. After you had left.

_“Lover, I feel your sorrow / Pouring out / Of your skin / And I don’t wanna be alone / If I am tonight / I’ll always be.”_

The tears burst forth from you like a broken pipe, ripping with force from a silent sob in your chest and cascading down your face. Why hadn’t either of you talked to one another after everything? The fear and anguish and solitude of the lyrics inundated you. Yukhei and Yuta were blurred and distorted by your tears. You wiped at them hastily, afraid to miss a moment.

_“And I can see you / And I can feel you / Slipping through my hands…”_

Yukhei’s eyes were squeezed closed, barely moving anything but his fingers and his mouth. His voice was beautiful and raw, and you knew it would swim in your mind long after he stopped tonight. And he did stop eventually, his voice trailing off, the plucking ringing into silence. There was a moment of nothing, and then loud cheering from the audience. A deaf man would know he’d just witnessed something special.

Yukhei opened his eyes and flashed the audience a quick, grateful smile before turning to Jungwoo and bowing his head, his shoulders moving up and down with each deep breath. Jungwoo placed a hand on his shoulder and leant in, saying something into his ear. His eyes were searching the crowd over Yukhei’s shoulder, looking beyond the lights of the stage to the sea of faces. He stopped his search when Yukhei had regathered himself and Yuta had his bass back, and they continued.

They finished their show, retaking their usual positions. It only took Yukhei the duration of the next song to fix his mood properly, the emotional exhaustion that had hung from his shoulders after his song replaced by the usual exhilaration of performing. There were three more songs, all with lots of guitar and drums and high energy that were apparent crowd favourites. One of them you knew, the rest were unfamiliar which gave you the same guilt an absentee parents feels when they realise their child has been growing up without them knowing.

The performance ends and you move towards the side door you entered through to leave. As soon as you reach the carpeted hallway, the same beefy man with ‘security’ stitched over his heart caught you and told you that you were welcome backstage. You teetered on the edge of yes and no, but the guard seemed to decide for you when he started to walk away. In the split second before he disappeared in the swarm of exiting people you decided to follow, catching up to him and following him backstage. It had been a long time since you’d seen the bowels of a music venue, but they all look pretty much the same, and it brought back a terrifying deja vu that demanded you fight the wild urge to turn and bolt back towards the street.

He brought you to a door that stood ajar, and from inside you could hear their voices. You took a gulp of air and plastered a quaking smile across your face and pushed yourself inside, feeling yourself erupt in a cold sweat as every pair of eyes in the room landed on you.

It was quiet for a beat, before the boys erupted into excited greetings. Yuta grabbed you first, pulling you into a hug until Johnny yanked you from his band mate’s hold and ruffled your hair affectionately. Kun, ever the most reserved, shouldered his way politely between his friends and gave you a hug as well, asking how your studies had gone and congratulating you from the bottom of his heart when you told him that you’d received your diploma. Jungwoo swooped in and gave you a hug as well, although he was not so surprised and exuberant.

“I didn’t tell them I invited you,” he told you.

“I can tell,” you laughed, still boxed in by the others who were chattering excitedly with the adrenaline from the performance and the reunion with an old friend.

Jungwoo leaned in a little closer to your ear and lowered his voice over the chatter, “I didn’t tell _anyone_.”

You nodded imperceptibly, gaze skipping over his shoulder and making fleeting contact with a set of wide brown eyes watching you unblinkingly, as if you were a fleeting apparition and he didn’t believe in ghosts. You looked back to Jungwoo immediately, panic swelling in your chest. But he made a fist with one hand and gently punched your shoulder, shaking his head as gently as you had a moment before. _Don’t run now._

You didn’t hear what Jungwoo said to make it happen, but you had a feeling Kun’s intuition had him helping along as the other four bundled out of the room, disappearing towards the venue bar. You were left alone, unable to look at Yukhei but feeling ridiculous looking anywhere else.

You hoped he would say something first but you knew in your gut that he wouldn’t. So you scuffed the toe of your boot across the carpet and examined the snack table, “You were amazing up there, tonight.”

“Yeah,” the syllable was broken, he took a moment to take a breath, “yeah, we’ve really gotten it together.”

You finally looked at him, still sitting on the couch as he had been when you walked in, watching you for signs that you’d bolt at any second. You looked him in the eye and repeated yourself, “ _You_ were amazing up there tonight, Yukhei.”

He swallowed air, “Thank you.” He cleared his throat and stood up, but gave you a wide berth on his way to the minibar, where he pulled out two bottles of water. He set one of the table, not daring to come closer in case you decided to poisoned him, and unscrewed his own bottle, “Congratulations on finishing your degree.”

You wondered for a moment if the words were more weighted than they appeared. Suddenly you were back in his bedroom in your hometown, chest heaving as you pushed away from each other. That was the last time you’d talked with him about anything.

“Thanks,” the word was shallow and shaky, because you didn’t know how genuine you should be when you didn’t know if he meant it.

But he still seemed to have a knack for reading you, “Really. It’s an amazing achievement, but one we all knew you were capable of. You’ve done amazing things, this past year.”

He was speaking as if he knew. Had he asked Jungwoo about you?

“Well, so have you,” you gestured vaguely around the room, which to be honest was nothing special. But you both knew what you meant, “you’re getting what you’ve always deserved. I’m so glad it’s worked out for you.”

He cracked the knuckles of his right hand, “Yeah.”

You descended into thick silence, and you tried to recall a time when it had _ever_ been this quiet between you two, this awkward. You’d alway fallen into step with each other so easily, never missing a beat. Maybe you’d missed too many beats in your time apart to find the rhythm together again.

Again, you were the one to break the silence, “Have you sung lead before?”

He had been studying the silver rings adorning his fingers, but his stare lifted slowly to you. He shook his head.

You were unnerved by the eye contact and the unusually pensive expression, fixing you so intently you couldn’t help but fidget. “You’ve been practicing though,” he didn’t answer, “your voice is even better than before. Giving Jungwoo a run for his money.” Your joke fell flat in the tension between you. “It was a beautiful song.”

“It was about you,” his voice was deep and quiet, but you flinched as if he had yelled at you.

You nodded numbly, whispered, “I know.”

“I didn’t know you would come tonight.”

“I know,” you nodded again, steeled yourself, and asked the question that had been weighing on your mind from the moment he announced he’d be singing, “Why did you choose tonight to perform it?”

“Because.”

You nodded again and cast your eyes to the ceiling. Two years ago that response would have driven you mad, and you would have pushed him for an answer. Any chastising words died on your tongue.

But he elaborated on his own after a while, when he realised you weren’t going to push, “Because I knew this was the closest stop on the tour to you.”

That answer made more sense. But you directed your gaze back to him, because you had always known when he wasn’t finished expressing himself, when he still had more to say.

“And I saw your exhibition.”

He must have seen the unfiltered terror flood across your expression at hearing his words, because any of the thick walls separating you collapsed away and he was in front of you in a nano-second, big, calloused hands rubbing up and down yours arms, “No! Don’t look like that,” his laugh was melancholy, “it was incredible. You’re more talented than you know, more talented than most people can wrap their head around. It was wonderful.”

“It was of you,” the words were tight, stunted. He laughed again, short and humourless.

“I know. I saw it.”

“I hardly wanted Jungwoo to see it, let alone you,” you mumbled, getting distracted by the warmth of his hands on your exposed arms. You wished you hadn’t been so preoccupied moments again with crippling fear, so you could have focused on how it felt to have his skin against yours for the first time in an epoch.

“I was surprised,” he admitted, “but they’re your photos. You can do what you want with them. Especially when they’re that special. There was so much… _conveyed_ in each photo. And the film, as well. It proved that you were right to follow your gut and go. But you always knew it was the right choice.”

You shook your head, “No, I didn’t. I hoped, but I didn’t _know._ ”

There was another moment punctuated by silence, but it was less awkward. Yukhei didn’t let you go or move away, you looking at your toes and him looking at you.

“Why didn’t you message me?” When you saw the exhibition? During the year I was away? After the fight?

His hand trailed down your arms, fingers lingering over your relaxed hands, skidding across your knuckles before leaving your skin completely. He didn’t reach out to reconnect, but he didn’t move out of your personal space, either. You could hear every breath he took, he was so close.

“When I went to the exhibition, it broke my heart. I was angry, but not because you used those photos of me. Because of what it meant. The photos were brimming with emotion, but it was plain to see it wasn’t the same emotion you had taken them with at the start. It had changed. And I was looking at myself the way you saw me, the way you _see_ me. And it felt final. It was terrifying. I knew you didn’t love me anymore.”

Indignation reared its angry head as you snapped your head up, staring at him, in disbelief that the man had the audacity to say those words. “You knew?”

He watched you warily, but there was an undercurrent of intrigue, like a child watching a lion at the zoo.

“You never asked me that.”

“We haven’t exactly been on speaking terms.”

“Then you don’t know how I feel.”

He sighed, rubbing his eyes quickly. When he dropped his hand back to his side, his fingertips skimmed your skin, causing it to erupt in goosebumps. “We’re creatives, Y/N. We express ourselves through our art. It felt like you were taking me through that exhibition like you’d just done with Jungwoo, like you were explaining all the ways I’d hurt you.” He forced his words out.

Your eyes were watering, as if it were possible to cry more that evening. But they managed, fallen soldiers quietly trickling down your cheeks one by one. They weren’t sad or angry tears. You were just overwhelmed.

“Your song tonight was sad.”

“I know.”

“Heart-breaking. Lonely.”

“I know.”

“It still felt raw, the emotions,” you muttered, wanting desperately to reach out and touch him but feeling that might be unfair, might break the rules.

“I know.” His voice was quiet, the sort of quiet you were pretty sure only you were privy to. Maybe that had changed. Maybe not.

“Like you—”

He nodded.

“Like you still have feelings for me.”

“I do.”

You inhaled sharply. “And you’re confident that I don’t,” he nodded at you, “because of what you saw at my exhibition,” he nodded again.

“Well, all art is subjective, but you’re wrong on that one,” you had stopped crying by the time you tipped you head up to look at him defiantly, but your eyes still glimmered.

“What changed, then?” He asked, “What did I see?”

“They were mourning,” you replied, “something I never thought I’d see again. It was final, you were right. I was trying to say a last goodbye to all that.”

“All that?”

“Everything I felt, that went up in flames last year. I felt like I’d been living in limbo ever since. And I certainly wasn’t going to give you a fucking call to talk it over, was I?” It was your turn to laugh emptily.

“But it wasn’t that you hated me?”

“I don’t think I could ever hate you, Yukhei,” you let your fingers reach out and weightlessly touch one of the belt-loops of his jeans. He smiled down at you, and this time it seemed to be more real. It was a more familiar smile.

“I didn’t want you to go, back then,” his voice was a gravelly whisper, “and I’m not going to apologise for that, because every particle of me wanted to stop you from going. But I never wanted to break up with you, and I never wanted to take your future from you. I just didn’t know how to deal with the conflict of how much I adored you. And I didn’t give myself a chance to figure it out. You didn’t give me one, either.”

“No,” you admitted, “I didn’t.” His hand reached over the short distance between you and slipped his fingers between yours. “You’re the biggest idiot alive if you think I ever stopped loving you.”

He ripped his fingers from yours and cupped your face with both hands, brow furrowing as he planted his lips desperately on yours, pulling you flush to his body, relaxing as you grabbed fistfuls of his shirt, as he tasted the truth of your words on your tongue. He pulled away only to yank you into a crushing hug, as if he were trying to absorb your whole being into his body.

“When I wrote that song after we fought,” he mumbled into your hair, “I could only ever imagine myself performing it for you. I didn’t want it on any EPs or albums, I didn’t want to play it at shows. But it wasn’t Jungwoo that told me to play it tonight because he knew you’d be here. It just had to be tonight. Tonight was the only time I was ever going to perform it, I don’t think I could do it again.”

You squeezed him back, wrapping your arms around his taught waist with all your might, “Well aren’t I lucky I saw it.”

He leaned back and dropped a kiss to your lips again, beaming down at you like the sun upon the earth. You basked in its warmth, having missed the feeling with your entire being.

“We should let the other guys know that we haven’t killed each other,” Yukhei chuckled, stepping back but keeping one arm firmly around your waist, no plans on letting go. You laughed leaning into him as you began walking towards the back entrance door to the street, where Yukhei knew they’d be meeting fans or packing the stuff with the crew. You fell back into step with one another, picking up the rhythm of the song where it had been left off so many months before.

* * *

 

You shifted your weight, squirming against the coarse hair of the picnic blanket. It was the middle of a bright summer day, and you could feel the sun warming your bones. You heard Jungwoo’s back door open and the swing closed, and the muffled sound of footsteps on grass approaching you. You opened your eyes and squinted at the tall frame gliding towards you, sitting up and extending a hand.

“Your beer, Your Majesty,” Yukhei placed the cold bottle in your palm, before sinking down on the rug next to you. He placed his bottle down carefully at a safe distance and made sure you had a grip on yours before wrapping his hands around your waist and pulling you into his side, before settling back on his elbows and tilting his head to the sun like a cat. He’d just finished band practice and come to find you. They still practice in Jungwoo’s garage a lot of the time, purely because it was still the most convenient spot. He’d gotten back from tour earlier in the week and you had returned from a photography assignment in England the day prior, so you had carved out time in your frantic schedules to bask in each other’s presence and catch up on each other’s lives. Because you couldn’t live them joined at the hip, you couldn’t share everything. Two people move in different ways, but the magic occurs when those ways compliment one another perfectly.

Yukhei reached over you, kissing your temple in the process of grabbing your camera from where it was cast to the side in the grass. He leans back as far as he can whilst still keeping you next to him and snaps a couple of photos. It was your film camera, so there was no way to know what they looked like until you got them developed.

“Beautiful,” he exclaimed, despite being as in the dark about how they’d turn out as you.

You laughed, and it made him smile wider and squeeze you closer.

“Careful there,” you cautioned mockingly, “you’ll squeeze the life out of me.”

“Oh, I think I know how to handle you by now,” he grumbled along with the joke, prodding your side right below your ribs, where you were most ticklish, earning him a flinch, a thump on the chest and an ‘oi!’ “Plus, I know I have to be careful with you. You’re indispensable.”

“Because I put out?” You asked flippantly, batting your eyes teasingly. He gave you a flick in gentle reprimanding on the forehead.

“No, numbskull. Because you’re my muse. What would I do without you?”

You liked to think you were immune to his charms at that point, but you melted a little more than you’d care to admit at that. You mumbled under your breath.

“What was that?” He stuck his face as close a he could to yours, squinting and pressing your noses together.

“You’re my muse as well, dickhead,” you repeated, glowering at him.

His smile stretched from ear to ear, “Better treat me right to keep me around, then!”

“I couldn’t get rid of you if I tried,” you scoffed, reaching up and pecking his lips quickly. He hummed in satisfied agreement, before lying back down and tugging you with him, curling up around you like he were holding a doll. You combed your fingers through his soft hair, feeling him relax against you.

“You’re right there.”

And just like that, you continued to move in perfect harmony.


End file.
